I have known many sorrows, most of which never happened. - Mark Twain
Why we limit our possibilities
I bet if we kept score of the wrongs that have actually been done to us versus the wrongs we have imagined, the latter would win by a landslide for almost all of us. That would be a terribly important statistic regarding our relationships, wouldn’t it?
Our brains are hardwired to look for patterns in order to simplify and classify what we encounter. When hurtful things happen, we anticipate the wounding behavior of others to protect ourselves from possible future wounds. We imagine others are thinking and feeling things about us that correspond to the wounding event(s). We start to organize our behavior around avoiding possible triggers, overcompensating by acting in the opposite way or surrendering to it. Our expectations contribute to co-creating future interactions that corroborate our assumptions.
The fascinating thing about this process is that most of it takes place in our own heads and outside of our conscious awareness.
Our brains are hardwired to look for patterns in order to simplify and classify what we encounter. When hurtful things happen, we anticipate the wounding behavior of others to protect ourselves from possible future wounds. We imagine others are thinking and feeling things about us that correspond to the wounding event(s). We start to organize our behavior around avoiding possible triggers, overcompensating by acting in the opposite way or surrendering to it. Our expectations contribute to co-creating future interactions that corroborate our assumptions.
The fascinating thing about this process is that most of it takes place in our own heads and outside of our conscious awareness.
The trance of unworthiness
Let’s look at an example of how this works:
Tim was raised by a narcissistic mother and a father who withdrew much of his affection when he divorced Tim’s mother after discovering she had multiple affairs. Tim felt unloved and defective growing up. As an adult, he struggled with his self-esteem and in maintaining friendships and romantic relationships.
Tim’s formative experiences led him to believe that he was flawed and to expect others to reject him and confirm this bias. As a result, he ended up acting in ways that invited rejection. He was aggressive, judgmental, and avoidant. All of his behaviors were self-protective. All were unconscious with respect to why he was behaving the way he was behaving.
When I asked Tim about his interactions, he often told me all the reasons why different people were flawed and weren’t worth maintaining friendships with.
Tim was raised by a narcissistic mother and a father who withdrew much of his affection when he divorced Tim’s mother after discovering she had multiple affairs. Tim felt unloved and defective growing up. As an adult, he struggled with his self-esteem and in maintaining friendships and romantic relationships.
Tim’s formative experiences led him to believe that he was flawed and to expect others to reject him and confirm this bias. As a result, he ended up acting in ways that invited rejection. He was aggressive, judgmental, and avoidant. All of his behaviors were self-protective. All were unconscious with respect to why he was behaving the way he was behaving.
When I asked Tim about his interactions, he often told me all the reasons why different people were flawed and weren’t worth maintaining friendships with.
The danger of assumptions in relationships
These issues come up all of the time in my work with couples. Interactions become fixed and habitual. This leads to assumptions on both sides. When we think we can predict a behavior that is one less thing to think about. The fixed beliefs and assumptions create the self-fulfilling prophecies that keep people stuck in the same patterns. While the consistency and familiarity are comforting on one level for our brains, they are toxic for the health of the relationship. They breed resentment and isolation.
Carlos Castañeda, the Peruvian-born American anthropologist, and writer said:
Carlos Castañeda, the Peruvian-born American anthropologist, and writer said:
We talk to ourselves incessantly about our world. In fact we maintain our world with our internal talk. And whenever we finish talking to ourselves about ourselves and our world, the world is always as it should be. We renew it, we rekindle it with life, we uphold it with our internal talk. Not only that, but we also choose our paths as we talk to ourselves. Thus we repeat the same choices over and over until the day we die, because we keep on repeating the same internal talk over and over until the day we die.
Again, just as with Tim, couple’s get stuck in these patterns because they feel threatened. They are protecting themselves. At least they think they are.
Letting go
The best thing we can practice as individuals and in our relationships is letting go. Letting go of assumptions. Letting go of resentments. Your brain will resist because letting go is inviting the unknown. The unknown can be scary. It is what exists beyond the prisons of our minds. The prisons of our own making.
The only thing I really know is that I know nothing. - Socrates
We could all benefit from a dose of extra humility. Who are you to assume you can boil down what is in someone else's head and heart to a simple formula? We limit possibilities to make navigating the terrain of life more manageable, but when the shortcuts we create supplant openness to connecting with others, that's a big problem.
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If you haven’t already read the book, it’s a great place to start - Relationship Reboot: Break free from the bad habits in your relationship.
David B. Younger, Ph.D. is the creator of Love After Kids, for couples that have grown apart since having children. He is a clinical psychologist and couples therapist with a web-based private practice and lives in Austin, Texas with his wife, 13-year-old son, 4-year-old daughter and 6-year-old toy poodle.
If you haven’t already read the book, it’s a great place to start - Relationship Reboot: Break free from the bad habits in your relationship.
David B. Younger, Ph.D. is the creator of Love After Kids, for couples that have grown apart since having children. He is a clinical psychologist and couples therapist with a web-based private practice and lives in Austin, Texas with his wife, 13-year-old son, 4-year-old daughter and 6-year-old toy poodle.
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